So maybe it’s not a military vehicle per se, but any vehicle directly derived from the Willys MB gets a nod in my book. Just like Pat Foster, I always wondered about the Jeep designation convention. For example, the CJ-2s and CJ-3s got A or B suffixes, while the CJ-5s through CJ-8s didn’t. (And don’t get me started on the recent switch from TJ, WJ, etc. to JK, WK, etc. Yes, I’m anal about things like that). Point? Yes, they seemed to skip the CJ-4, and nobody seemed to notice until Foster’s two-page article (scanned below) in SIA #166, July-August 1998, in which he tracks down the missing CJ-4.

It’s the real deal and not a Mahindra. You could call it the “missing link” between the round-fender CJ-5 and the flatfender CJ-3A. It was an offshoot of a military development to fit the f-head engine into the jeep. The F-head was a taller powerplant, so the hood and cowl had to be raised. This was one way the engineers did it. The military result from these experiments was the M-38A1. On the civvy side was the CJ-5… and you can see the resemblance. I shot this jeep a year before and did a story in Jp Magazine on it in 1997.